Expanding U.S. fish farming could boost consumption of essential fatty acids, as Americans eat just half the American Heart Association’s recommended 3.5 ounce bi-weekly fish servings, panelists at the Capitol Hill Ocean Week conference said.
“If we all in the United States were to eat two helpings a week of an oily fish, that would lower the overall death rate in the country by 17 percent and it would lower the death rate due to cardiovascular diseases by 37 percent,” panel moderator Scott Nichols, CEO of aquaculture consulting firm Food’s Future, said. “This is bigger than quitting smoking, it’s bigger than wearing seat belts.”
Salmon are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which help fight heart disease and offer other health benefits. Nichols asserted farm-raised fish are up to 22 percent higher in fat than wild salmon. But while farm-raised fish have “slightly more” Omega-3s, a small fillet also has 20.5 percent more saturated fat than wild salmon, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Aside from fish, some vegetable oils, nuts, flax seeds, and leafy vegetables, also contain omega-3s.
Even though US waters produce between 30 and 40 species, 91 percent of all seafood consumed in the United States is imported, led by shrimp, Ocean Week panelist and senior scientist Kevan Main of the Mote Marine Laboratory said. “We need to develop domesticated stocks,” he said.
“If you get anywhere away from the Coast(s), people are not that familiar with eating fish and they’re going to always choose beef or chicken or pork over fish, just because they haven’t grown up eating it,” Main said. “We have challenge in trying to communicate to people about the health advantages associated with … your heart and the health of your brain.”
People get scared away from seafood, whenever it gets bad press, Main said. Reports of mercury in wild fish become misconstrued and get applied to all fish, he said. The FDA recommends breastfeeding women and young children should eat fish low in mercury, such as salmon, shrimp, pollock, tuna (light canned), tilapia, catfish, and cod. Fish higher in mercury, such as swordfish and albacore tuna, should be eaten less frequently.